jig mold question

I'm lloking to buy a jig mold. I want some flexability in what hooks I use. What brand of jig head molds will accept various hooks sizes and styles?

i have a do-it mold that has 1 of each size from 1/80 to 1/4oz and all of the jig slots can usually hold 2-3 differant sizes of hooks. I usually use just Matzuo sickles. PBUG and I had a conversation similar to this and i know he uses 3 or 4 differant brands and styles of hooks in his do-it molds. Hopefully he will chime in pretty soon and help you out a little more

i have the same exact mold here. hey mw i sent you a pm

I've used Eagle Claws, Mustads, VMC, Owners and Gami's and Matzuo's. Depending on how big a hook you want to use you may have to modify your mold. Some folks don't want to do this. I've sent emails to Do-It about this and quite frankly it doesn't do any good. As many of the guys here on the boards will tell you with the Sickle Hooks, some of the first batchs the length of the wire from the eye to the bend

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...hookchange.jpg where it goes in the mold was way to long and some were short. If Do-it would make the eye slot in the mold long and oval shaped it would make using bigger hooks easier.

I've found the bigger the hook you use the harder it gets. The other thing with the do-its that I've posted on is that they are now putting 4 on one side and 4 on the other, anyone with a mold close it and look at the top with the pour holes, now the new ones have those and if you turn the mold over it has them on the other side now. I'll get a picture up later showing this. By doing this they really screw with being able to use larger hooks in the mold without modifying.

Fatman

Just remember that the mold is good for a specific purpose. A mold big enough to hold a #1 or #2 will fill in when #6 is used. You can play with temperature (lower) when pouring small hook jigs with a large hook mold. If you can get light wire hooks, sometimes they work well in molds designed for smaller hooks. Also remember the dremel tool. It can turn a mold into junk or the perfect fit.

I'm about to modify one of mine to use #2 in a 1/32 barbed head mold. I'm not going to try the dremel thing like I did the other day. It worked OK but it could have gone bad real fast. I'm going to use a Dremel bit in a drill press and take tiny bites with the depth of cut preset. I think that should help with the wandering a dremel usually has. I'm looking for drill bits that are numbered or in .001 increments, probably have to pay through the nose for em, but I don't need many. Custom molds are the way to go, but I can't justify the $ for no more than I do.

Basis question with a Do-It You can use more than one size hook. That is why I like them cheap and flexable.

Fatman: What I have done is to put a kink bend in the hooks if the lenth from the shaft to the eye is too long. A round nose pliers works great on these. It does take a little practice to get it right but well worth it.

Skeetbum: I work in the jewelry industry for years and I modify my molds with a Foredom flex shaft. Have to admit that I have very good hand eye cordination. Comes from years of setting diamonds. LoLs. I would look for some dental drills check with your dentist or hygenist they throw them away all the time. I had three people get me old dental drills when they were not good to drill thur teeth they were still good to cut gold. BTW When cutting aluminium I would suggest that you use oil of wintergreen as a lub on your cutting tool what ever you use. Cleaner faster cut very little clean up and use lite pressure take off very little at a time. Easier to take more off than to add back on.

Redman

GrumpyLoomis - I only use the light wire hooks in my molds. Most molds will USUALLY allow 1 up or down in hook size size. I have never had the problem you talk about "A mold big enough to hold a #1 or #2 will fill in when #6 is used".

Well finally got the photo's of the molds the one is the horsehead showing how it's cut both sides and not a whole lot of space between the two sides. If you had it trimmed you'd be taking off the bottom edge of the slot where the crane swivels go. The ball no collar (notice the very small area for the eye of the hook. thats what I had suggested making the eyelet hole longer so if you got hooks with a longer wire which I showed in a previous picture. This mold also could use some metal trimmed off as a size 1 hook doens't allow the mold to close.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...1/100_0930.jpg

I tried loading the mold with hooks and swivels and it really doesn't like to be closed with the way the hooks are angled. Wish they were straight up and down like the pony head mold.

Skeet are you talking about the model RHB-8-1632 (1/16 and 1/32 with barb)??? If so I don't know why you'd need to modify I use size size 2's in it all the time, now again the only problem I run into is with the sickle hooks with the longer wire between the eye and bend

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...hookchange.jpg

Now the way around that is to sit in front of the TV with a baking pan to hold the hooks and start popping hooks in the mold to find which ones fit with no problems and when you get ready to mold only use those ones.

Redman I've tried that kink trick but ended up breaking too many hooks.

Fatman

I just meant that you can get away with smaller hooks in a mold for bigger hooks but you have to be careful getting bigger hooks to fit smaller molds. If you do modify a mold, it may not work for what it was origanally made for. There is going to be a small window for what that mold will do once modified, one size does not fit all. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

Fatman part of the secret of putting a kink bend in the hooks is to hold it at the bend with the (big secret) a pair of round nose pliers. These pliers are some times called rosary pliers. A pair of medium round nose should do the trick. That is the only kind that I have ever owned. It works great and you will not break any hooks by using this method. The reason is that the bend has the temper taken out of it already and will be ease to bend at that point. The new hook bending machines are really good at takeing just a small amout of temper out at that point just don't power bend it and you will be ok.

Redman